


Lounge Lizards

by Tallulah



Category: Death Note
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, First Kiss, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3964555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mello's proud of the form his daemon has fixed as. Matt isn't so impressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lounge Lizards

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to still_lycoris for all the talk about DN character daemons: she helped come up with the daemons for these two and generally encouraged me!

Matt's already noticed that you can divide people up into two groups when it comes to their daemons changing. He was in the first group, the one where no one really notices - even you don't notice - that she isn't altering half as much as she used to, and then one day you turn to her and say _are you stuck like that, then?_ and she tells you she is, but it's okay, because you've had time to get used to your daemon being a chameleon (in his case) and you don't mind.

Mello is firmly in the second group. The group where you wake up one morning and it's just happened, and you _know_ , and you then spend the next week showing off that you know. Even now, when it's just the two of them, Matt lying on his bed playing Tetris and Mello sitting on the floor with his daemon lying next to him, he's still stroking the top of her head, _just_ so Matt will be aware that Amber has settled into the form of a six-foot-long killer lizard and it's _awesome._

Matt is not going to put up with Mello's boasting any more than he has to. 

"Mello."

"Yeah?"

"Komodo dragons have poisonous spit, right?" He keeps his eyes on the Gameboy screen. A square of blocks would be awesome right now. "Like, their mouths are full of bacteria."

"Uh-huh." Mello's voice is full of smugness, and Matt can imagine Amber's snaky smile becoming even wider.

"And they, like, spend all their time lurking on rocks and waiting for animals to come along so they can rip their throats out."

"Yup."

"And sometimes they're so desperate to ram stuff down their throats they'll run into trees so they can force it down." 

He hears Mello shift, look up at him. "Someone's been reading the encyclopaedia, haven't they? God, Matt, you're such a loser."

"How do you know I've been swotting up on Komodo dragons if you haven't too?"

"I'm entitled to. She's my daemon. What's your point?"

"I was thinking I'll ask Roger if I can room with someone else, that's all."

"What?" Mello yells it, genuine shock in his voice. "Why?"

"I'm not sure I want to sleep in the same place as someone whose soul has poisonous spit." Matt squints at the screen, fights back a smile. Focus on the game. "You know? It just scares me."

"Wuss." Mello's stood up. "Coward. Chicken. Loser." Amber is prowling about, her tail lashing - it slams into the bookcase every so often, makes it rattle, echoing the sound of the rain outside. "Wanna go room with Near instead or something? I bet when _his_ daemon settles it'll be a, a flea or a worm or... a cute little _bunny rabbit._ You prefer that, huh?"

"Well... maybe. A Komodo dragon could munch Ira right up, that's all."

"Yeah, and _will_ , if you don't stop being so pathetic." Mello's very close. Matt's sometimes wondered if Mello would break the Taboo just because it's _there_ , and needs breaking; as the thought crosses his mind, he feels Ira cling more tightly to the back of his neck, her claws digging in, and figures he should probably end the joke before Mello loses it and does something that might be regretted later. 

"You're not helping your case," he says.

"Oh, shut up. You're not really gonna say to Roger... Damn it, Matt, you must be kidding me!" 

Matt waits until he's cleared the screen of blocks before pausing the game and rolling over - Ira scurries onto his chest - and saying, "Yeah. I'm kidding you."

Mello's face sets into that I'm-so-angry-I-can-hardly-form-an-expression look, and Amber slams herself hard against the bed, making it shake. But Matt grins at them both, and after a while, Mello grins back, a grin that's half a scowl.

"You twat," he says. 

"Hey, I had to do something to stop you showing her off."

"He's allowed to show me off," Amber says, coiling herself around Mello's feet. "No one else is like me."

"Yeah, 'cause no one else is crazy."

"I'm not crazy. I'm not crazier'n anyone else here." Mello sits down on the bed, scratches the top of Amber's head again. "Besides, who're you to talk? Look at _her_." He jerks his head at Ira. "You're just like me, only way, way smaller."

Ira snorts, flicks out her tongue. 

"Besides," Mello continues, "so what if it makes me look crazy? Means no one's gonna mess with me."

"Yeah, but just wait til you want to snog someone," Matt says. "They'll be all _oh, oh, Mello, do me... wait, don't Komodo dragons have poisonous spit?_ " He yelps as Mello dives at him and starts wrenching at his ears, twisting them (his latest method of showing people they shouldn't have said whatever they just said). "Ow, _ow_ , I was kidding -"

"You do that a lot," Mello says, but he does let go. "Anyway. It doesn't matter. Duh, they don't snog your daemon, they snog _you_."

"Yeah, but your daemon and their daemon..."

"What?"

"You know, they... snuggle." Matt didn't mean it to sound like that, but that was how his mum told him, way back when. He hastily says, "They touch each other or something," but Mello's already snorting with laughter, and Matt isn't in the mood for that to be laughed at, and so he throws his pillow at Mello and then says, "God, I can't believe you didn't know that."

" _Snuggle_ ," Mello says, catching the pillow and resting it under his arms. "You're such a baby."

"You didn't know, did you?"

"I did bloody well know."

"You didn't. People are gonna have to ask their daemons whether they want to cosy up to her."

"I don't see why it's any worse cosying up to a Komodo dragon than it is to anything else." Mello lets his fingers run over Amber's claws. "She wouldn't bite 'em. Unless I wanted her to."

"Unless _I_ wanted to," Amber says, snapping at his hand.

"And she's not slimy or anything," Mello says, lightly smacking her round the head. "Ugh, imagine snogging someone with a slug daemon."

"You wouldn't want to, though, right?"

"I dunno. Maybe if they were really fit..." Mello stares off into space for a few moments. Eventually, Amber says, "I would eat it."

Matt shakes his head. "You two are mental."

"Well, I don't see that it's so much better cosying up to a chameleon," Mello says. "Ira's just like Amber, but all small. And her eyes bulge."

"I would sit on them," Ira says. She never gets mad when people - usually Mello - say this kind of stuff. "I would sit on them and lick."

"Gross," Mello says.

"You wouldn't wanna lick her, though, right?" Matt says, pointing to Amber, who snarls at him.

"I would want to if you wanted to kiss Mello," Ira says, and scuttles round to the back of Matt's neck again.

"Gross. Ew. No way." Matt says it almost automatically, because the topic of men kissing men comes up every so often in every foster home and he's got the lines down pat now. 

"Well, I wouldn't want to kiss you either," Mello says. "Wanker."

"Just because you haven't kissed anyone else."

"I have." Mello smirks, looking like a lizard, so Matt figures he's telling the truth. "You're the one who hasn't kissed anyone. Virgin. Computer geek."

"Well, if I was gonna kiss anyone, it wouldn't be you," Matt says.

"Good."

"Yeah."

Matt starts a new game. Outside, the rain keeps going.

"Anyway," Mello says, after a few moments, "you wouldn't wanna kiss me. Poisonous spit, remember?"

"Yeah."

A succession of completely useless blocks fall, and Matt scowls as the screen becomes filled with pixellated darkness.

"Ira says she doesn't mind, though," he says.

"Oh yeah."

"Who'd you snog, anyway? Not someone here."

"Nah. This girl I met in the park. I told her I was from out of town."

Matt nods. The local kids aren't sure what to think about the Wammy's children. And they don't even get to see the real weirdoes, the ones who won't go outside no matter what. Matt may not like going outside much but he knows he's not a real weirdo. Sometimes he thinks he's not weird enough to be here at all.

Thing is, no one at Wammy's House seems interested in kissing. More in, like puzzles, and books, and lining up matchsticks, and being the next L. Sometimes, Matt worries a bit about his future. Like, if you hang around with weirdoes, don't you become weird yourself? And then what if he finds he's not smart after all and decides to be normal? He could've become so Wammy's-like that it just wouldn't work, and the he wonders if the fact he's never snogged anyone is the start of it.

But then, he's been friends with Mello for ages and he's still not psycho, so it probably doesn't work that way.

Still. 

"What was it like?" he says.

"Slimy. Like licking a slug." Mello laughs, and Amber does too, baring her teeth. 

"Gross."

"Yeah. It wasn't _that_ gross, though. Not like you'd think." Mello's got that jammy tone to his voice again, and Matt's suddenly sick of it. He wants to show Mello he's not _scared_ and he wants to show Mello he can do just as many stupid pointless things and he wants - he wants - he doesn't want to kiss _Mello_ , he just wants to kiss _someone_ , and at least with Mello he doesn't have to try and be all cool and, and like football or whatever. So he leans over, fully intending to kiss Mello on the lips, and then he stops, because he just can't quite bring himself to actually _do_ it, and what if they bang noses, or what if it _is_ gross like licking a slug, or, or - 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Mello says, but he doesn't sound more than mildly grumpy. "I thought you said you didn't want to kiss me."

"Yeah, well, maybe I want to see if it's as gross as I think it'll be." Matt can hear how belligerent he sounds, and he realises Mello's going to make fun of him about this for _ever_ , and he was supposed to be taking Mello down a peg, he's really screwed it up this time, but. But he isn't likely to be able to make out with random fit girls in parks any time soon and. And -

"Well, why aren't you doing it?" Mello says. His breath is warm on Matt's face; Matt can faintly smell the spaghetti bolognaise both of them had for lunch. 

"Because -"

He feels Ira's claws yanking his shirt as she picks her way delicately down his back and then jumps from him onto Amber. Matt shivers, wants to snatch her back suddenly. This is weird, even if it is only Mello it's still weird, he's suddenly _noticing_ how close they are, and he looks round at Mello to see if Mello finds it weird too and then Mello leans forward and kisses him.

It's only for a second. And it is kind of wet. And really sort of strange, because it's _Mello_ , and it's such a pointless thing to do, pressing your mouth on to someone else's, and he really shouldn't be thinking about it this much, and it's supposed to be fun but it's so _weird_ \- 

Mello pulls away from him, rubs a hand across his mouth. "Happy now?" he says. "By the way, you lost the game."

Matt picks up his Gameboy, shrugs. "It wasn't working out anyway. Hey, Ira, get off her before she eats you." 

Ira, who was lying on Amber's back as if she was sunning herself on a rock, patters over the Komodo dragon's scales and up onto Matt's arm. 

"You're so desperate," Mello says, laughing. 

"Fuck off."

"Still, at least you didn't go try snogging Near." 

"Yeah, like I'd ever do _that_. He doesn't even know what kissing is." He starts a new game, and, after a while, Mello stops grinning annoyingly and takes out a comic and they both carry on just hanging out and the rain keeps going.

That night, while Mello's gone to brush his teeth, Matt pulls the covers over himself and Ira, and whispers, "You must've been scared she'd eat you."

"Why would I be scared?" she said. "You weren't. He could have laughed at you and told people things."

"I... yeah, but..." Matt can't explain that he doesn't know for certain Mello _wouldn't_ , but that - but that maybe he'd been tired of watching things creep up on him. Like settled forms and the future and never kissing anyone. Maybe he'd wanted to be surprised. Or maybe it's just he is weird after all.


End file.
